Posts by Courtney Maguire:

It’s that time of year again when Van’s Warped Tour cuts a path through the country bringing with it some of the hottest bands out there. Forty two dates, seven stages and more bands than I can even count bring a mix of punk, rock and just plain fun to a sweltering summer day. This year’s lineup included Nagoya’s hard-rock heroes, coldrain. I had a chance to chat about fans, culture and, of course, music with their front-man and total charmer, Masato, before their show in San Antonio. Read more below the cut.

The sensual vampire aristocrat and frontman of the recently-reinstated Versailles will be bringing his solo show back to North America this fall. He will be stopping in New York City on August 25 and Mexico City on August 29 on his Aestheticism Tour, which also includes two nights in Paris, France. This will be Kamijo’s second visit to New York and he hopes to build on his previous appearance there, bringing and even more powerful performance to the stage. Tickets are on sale now. Get them from B7Klan.

Okay, admittedly, it did not start out so colossal. As you may or may not be aware, the weather in central Texas has been absolutely horrific. Dangerous thunderstorms and flooding have been plaguing the entire central corridor for the past few weeks, but I wasn’t about to let that stop me from seeing what is, in my opinion, one of the best bands in the visual kei scene. That’s right. I picked this god-awful time to make the long trek from Austin to Toronto to see Matenrou Opera appear at Anime North. What could possibly go wrong?

An almost eight hour delay and two missed connections later, I finally arrived in the beautiful city of Toronto, Ontario and met up with fearless leader Lizz. She had just finished her interview with the band and, despite my extreme travel fatigue, I found myself buzzing with excitement. The show couldn’t come soon enough.

It seems I wasn’t the only one who felt this way. We arrived at Anime North the next day around noon to find some die-hard fans already lining up at the door. We joined them a few hours later where we were invited to sign a Canadian flag they had prepared as a gift to the band. We chatted with a few of the fans and the overall feeling was one of love and excitement.

We were finally allowed in about 30 minutes past the posted start time and the crowd rushed to surround a curtained stage. The show opened with Red Handed Denial, a local Toronto act with a heavy rock and roll sound. The audience warmed up quickly, pumping their fists and even calling for an encore after their set finished and they happily obliged, treating us to one more song before clearing the way for the headline act. More